Driven Dreams and Falling Petals
by Foxy-Floof
Summary: When Guin is driven onwards to find his "Star called Destiny", he travels, never knowing that his life is about to change in ways he never imagined. And when a little Fox-Demon named Shippo and a handsome prince fall into his life, he'll never know what hit him.


Z7:13 PM 5/31/2013note: This crossover fanfic takes place on one end after the end of Guin Saga. At the other end it takes place before Belle ever meets Beast. In the middle, is one very confused little Fox-demon by the name of Shippo(courtesy of Inuyasha), after the end of the canon arc.

WARNING FOR SCENES OF SEMI-NC SEXUAL SITUATION, SLAVERY, VIOLENCE, AND ADULT THEMES OF XENOPHOBIA, HOMOPHOBIA, AND LEMONS.

3 years, and still Guin was no closer to solving the mystery surrounding his origins, Aurra, and the even more cryptic directions to "head north".  
His adventures far to the south, with the twins of Parros, and the many conflicts he had survived throughout Nospheros had left a sour taste in his mouth, but a strange warmth in his chest.

The foolishness of those who had power, frustrated Guin. And the even greater foolishness of those who craved power, infuriated him. Power was fleeting, inconsequential.  
What mattered was living in the way that best suited your soul. Living in fulfillment of the destiny overseen by Jarn, the all-seeing.

Guin's steady footfalls were muffled now by a thick layer of dead leaves, and the leather boots he now wore against the late autumn's chill. His breath fogged for the first inches after it issued forth from his pitch-black nose.  
The thought of his breath brought his hand up, in an almost unconscious gesture, to his face. The leopard mask he wore, still confused him. It functioned and felt as his own flesh. But Guin felt deep within himself, that it was not natural. The only other alternative in Guin's estimation, was that he was changed into this form.  
But it was not his place to question the will of Jarn, only to obey, and search for the star that held his own destiny, and perhaps the keys to his past.

The weather was getting hot, and the cicadas (and the minor demons) were being especially annoying. Every week brought another den, another infestation of pests. Inuyasha was fed up. It was like a never-ending tide. A gentle tide, true, and much less than Sesshomaru might have done to him...  
But then again, Inuyasha didn't have Kagome to turn to for laughter or relief. He'd been surprised that Kagome had let him get his leg over. That surprise was nothing next to the shock of Kagome's pregnancy and subsequent decision to raise their child on her side of the well.  
But he'd shown no signs of carrying the demonic power of his sire and grandsire, so Inuyasha had no real grounds to worry. And certainly the human world of modern-day Japan was much safer for the child, who had proven to be naive and amazingly innocent.

Thoughts of Kagome made him more depressed than ever. The link between their worlds was gone, most likely forever... Still, he had a son out there in the distant years of the future, and that was something. Kagome had taken a number of pictures of the three of them together. A smaller number of those were in duplicate poses, with Inuyasha's ears concealed so that their son could have a picture that was safe to show in public.

A subtle stink to the air told Inuyasha's sensitive nose that something was amiss in the area again, and shouldering his sword, he set out to clear out the vermin once more.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the country...

He was so mad! Mad, mad, MAD! Those other Fox-demons had no idea what it was like to be alone after Inuyasha had left. Shippo had been lonely since Inuyasha had left to wander alone. They had parted ways with a few bittersweet words, and a couple of friendly jibes. Shippo had no idea that he'd end up going years without seeing his friend. Not a message, not even a single solitary visit. And meanwhile he was getting teased for being stockier and shorter than the rest of his family...  
Shippo huffed quietly, and strolled on his way. Maybe he'd go and spend a little time at the family shrine down by the lake. Meditate, and cleanse himself of the fresh sting of the insults his "friends" had hurled his way.  
Really, who needed enemies with 'friends' that teased, tormented, and taunted the way they did? He, Shippo, was lonely, and tired of being singled-out and alone.  
He knew that his sexual tendencies didn't endear him to many, as most Foxes his age already had a girlfriend or at least a female friend or two.

After Kagome, all the others had seemed so... shallow. They talked about family, and having kits, and the harvest each season, but that was it. They never wondered about what lay outside their village, or what life was about. And they all expected him to provide for them completely.  
Shippo sighed, this time feeling depressed. A few more steps, and he'd reached the bottom of the hill, and the edge of the lake. Here, a few large flat boulders made for a tidy perch to sit, and Shippo did so.

He gazed over the edge of the boulder, and looked critically at his wide, rather oval face. It wasn't long, slender and elegant like all the other Foxes... his face was wide and oval, almost round, and it only got wider when he smiled.  
Leaning over farther only showed Shippo more of what he disliked about himself. He saw his wide, stocky body, and the little paunch that was already developing. Heck, he looked more like a damned Tanuki than a Fox! The mere thought of that was enough to make him shudder in horror, and lean back... as his right foot-paw slid out from under him.  
Waving his arms, flailing, struggling desperately not to fall in the lake and add sogginess to the list of his shortcomings, Shippo tried to stand on his other foot and spin in place. Maybe it would give him the momentum to fall back on the rock, not into the water.

Gravity wasn't helping, and his left leg was starting to slide off the rock as well! Gasping, Shippo saw the inevitable soaking ahead, and simply closed his eyes and held his breath, resigned to being taunted as "the wet hairball" when he got home.

But instead of cold water, he felt a hot sensation... It was as if the water had been sitting in a bowl out under the hot sun all day. Pleasant almost, and there was a bubbling sensation flowing through his fur. Like a gentle massage. He opened his eyes, and immediately lost his head, as bright lights seared his eyes. He opened his mouth to scream, and only dragged in water.

He struggled for a bit longer, choking, clawing for the surface, unable to see which way was up. But his movements became sluggish.  
Shippo struggled harder to right himself and fight back up to the surface. But to no avail. There was no discernable up or down now, and his lungs burned.

Lack of air narrowed the blaze of lights around him down to a thin point of light.

The light died.

*****  
Guin was just settling in for the night. Another day of slow, steady walking, the occasional stop for water from the flask at his belt.  
He had eaten quite well yesterday, bringing down a large avian with leathery wings. He'd spitted and roasted it, and eaten his fill.  
Today had not yielded such a catch, but he was still strong and hardly felt the need for food. As he banked his campfire, to burn down to hot coals that he could re-kindle in the morning, he scanned his surroundings. His sensitive ears perked and twitched, listening for any strange or unidentifiable noise. Satisfied, he lay back, cushioning his head on a rounded stone at the foot of the tree that sheltered him and his fire from the possibility of rain in the night.  
He wrapped his cloak around himself, and just as he rolled over to sleep, an image flashed through his mind.  
( A beautiful and haughty figure, with streaming golden hair, stood before a man, crouched, terrified and dazzled by her beauty.)  
He couldn't think of how he knew that the man was terrified, but he knew. With a jolt, he sat up, his heart pounding away as if he had felt that terror himself.  
Unable now to sleep, Guin sat with his back to the tree, and tried to calm his pounding heartbeat, and slow his breathing.

What was that vision? Where did it come from? Who was that woman, no, that thing that had caused such terror in the unknown man, and in himself? The questions rolled over themselves repeatedly, but no answers presented themselves to the leopard-man's questing mind.

Slowly, as the sky began to lighten with false dawn, his heart finally settled, and he slept.

As he roused later that morning, with the sun already well on its way across the sky, Guin shook himself awake, aware of the slight stiffness of his shoulders. He levered himself to his feet, feeling his heavy muscles gliding across each other, working the kinks out. He resettled his cloak about his shoulders, made sure of his sword, and picked up his water flask. After a short drink, he stowed it at his belt. He glanced up, to check the sun's position in the sky, then down to see which way the shadows fell.  
Then, walking with steps as even and unaltering as each day before, Guin continued his journey north.

Little did Guin know that his vision was more than a vision. The man so terrified cowered before the beautiful lady... He had never seen her like before. Radiant golden tresses like trapped sunlight, so long they almost fell to the floor... Grey eyes at once cold and searing in their deep, pitiless gaze. He felt as if they burned through his soul, and into something deeper, something at once both intimate and painful. Her mouth, like a perfect rose, but twisted in an expression of disdain and disgust, somehow chilled him to his bones.

The man, Prince Vincent, was utterly, entirely terrified. He had been grumpy, angered and resentful of the whispered requests of his servants to attend to a stranger come to his castle.  
He'd been disgusted by the withered old hag standing at his door. He'd snapped at her, ordering her to explain her trespass on his lands and what she wanted. She had explained that the storm had caught her on the road, and she sought only a night's shelter from the storm's fury.  
He had of course, demanded what she offered in payment for a place in his castle. The old crone had the gall to offer forth a gnarled and bony hand clutching a single red rose. Such an absurd offering had enraged him further. He'd ordered her thrown out, and flogged for such disrespect.

As his guards had closed upon her, there had been a flash of light, and a crack of thunder within the hall. Light had rippled across the floor in rings, as the bent and withered crone unbent, stretching upwards, slender, youthful, and beautiful.  
With but a look, she had frozen the guards in their tracks. With but a flick of her fingers, she had called him forth. His legs had taken 3 steps forward, then buckled as if his tendons were cut.

Now those eyes, young and ancient and ageless, pinned him where he knelt bowed upon the stone. He felt stripped naked, as if she saw everything he was, and more.  
Vincent trembled, and found his voice. It irked him to hear it issue forth as from a weak and frightened boy, not the proud and puissant man he knew himself to be.  
He was begging for forgiveness. He, the Prince, who had refused the hands of many a fair maiden, and many a powerful princess, and more, the hands of several insanely wealthy heiresses. He begged her for forgiveness, though he couldn't even understand some of the words pouring from his lips.

The beautiful one's lips straightened and then quirked upwards in a smirk as she regarded the arrogant brat of a princeling groveling before her on his knees. She had at first considered simply destroying him and his castle for his disrespect. But his groveling had appeased her, and now she gazed into his soul, and what she saw both infuriated and shocked her.  
On the one hand, he had broken the hearts and spurned the affections of dozens, no, Hundreds of innocent young women. Intense dislike washed through her.  
On the other hand, this brat prince had no love in his heart, not even for himself. That appalling lack forced sympathy to wrap itself about her core.  
In yet another point, he was vain, foolish, arrogant, and uncaring. The enchantress felt disgust spike within her.  
Still there was so much sadness and fear at the bottom of his closed, strangled heart. Compassion brought memory back to fill her mind, and she felt tears trying to rise in her eyes.  
But in the end, she could only do so much, and determined to do her best for him.  
She pronounced the following curse upon him.

"As in your heart, so your appearance. As a beast you treat others, so shall you appear. Merciless were you to those less fortunate. Merciless shall I be to you. This rose, a rose of blessed peace and friendship which you spurned, shall be your only hope. It will not die a natural death, withering and drying up. But it will bloom for many years, and until the last petal falls, you may still redeem yourself from your present fate. But if you fail to learn... If you fail to learn to love another more than yourself, and receive that love in return before the last petal falls, you will be forever a beast, and you will die a beast."

As the last word passed her lips, seething darkness took the prince where he knelt, horrified at her words.

His fingers popped, cracked, and twisted, swelling with a burning pain that etched itself into his bones.  
Nails swelled, darkened, and twisted into sharp claws.  
Palms narrowed as wrists doubled and redoubled in thickness, swelling with slabs of muscle and iron-hard cables of tendon. His arms lengthened, their weight temporarily dislocating them from their sockets.  
Vincent screamed in agony as his shoulders ripped, and re-formed, muscle piling atop muscle in a hideous new configuration. His cries turned to bellows, and then to howls.  
He felt the skin of his forhead burn, bubble, and burst with a searing spear of pain, as first one and then another hard, bony projection grew and settled against his skull.  
His newly-shaped arms, more like those of a gorilla than a man's grasped at them, and terrible awareness swelled in his mind as he felt HORNS upon his head.

Still, the excruciating agony.

Each of his bones felt like molten metal burning his nerves as they all stretched and thickened, heavy and dense to support his new bulk.

A sharp crack and another howl brought him to his belly as first one knee, then the other, snapped and unhinged itself.  
Craning downwards he watched helplessly, as his legs stretched and rippled until they resembled the hind legs of a wolf more than a man.  
His feet felt like a million splinters were forcing themselves under his skin as they stretched and stretched, the toenails falling off and sharp black claws grew in their place.

His spine burned, but as the burning slowly faded, he became aware of strange new feeling of mobility fill him. Reaching back, Vincent discovered, to his dismay, he now had a tail, again much resembling a Wolf.  
Struggling to his feet, he felt one last terrible pain knife through his groin and up into his gut. It felt like he'd been quartered, and only now was being drawn.

He dropped to his kneeds again, and clutching at his crotch, his massive paws encountered another new horror. His balls swelled, the skin stretching taut around them, tearing and healing just as fast as the orbs within grew.  
When they were of a size to force him to bow his legs to make room for them, he felt likewise a swelling of his manhood.  
Looking down his belly, now rippling with thick, coarse FUR, Vincent saw that it no longer resembled itself.  
It was much more akin again to a dog's member, long, straight, with a chiselled tip, and a swelling at the base, holding a ring of fur and skin back behind it. It too swelled, throbbing with need.  
His balls jumped and twitched; he needed release.  
But the moment his paws touched himself he was seized by agonizing pain. The touch was far too rough. He couldn't even hold himself by the base. Even his breath coming from flared black nostrils, caused his head to swim as the draft caused prickling pains to roll down his shaft.

He looked at his arms, and down to his legs. Again the prince noticed where once had been fair, flawless skin, he now bore thick, coarse, scruffy fur. It appeared tawny in places and shaded to brown and fawn in others.  
He gaped, and then remembering that he was not alone, shut his mouth. Even there, he sensed, still more changes completed themselves. Fangs jutted up from his lower jaw, protruding far past what his upper lip could comfortably conceal. Looking directly down allowed him to just catch sight of those sharp points. Feeling with his tongue, the former Prince now felt rows of sharp teeth, Fangs, he corrected himself mentally.

He gazed... down at the enchantress. She gazed at him steadily, unflinchingly, and repeated her earlier words.

Then she vanished.

No thunder, flashes, or glittering lights. Just gone.  
The castle around him now looked to match its master. The angels, cherubs, and seraphim that once adorned the walls and railings and cornices of the walls now showed horns, tails, hooves, and cavernous mouths lined with beaks or sharp teeth.  
Feathery wings were now replaced with bats-wings, and wretched twisted pairs of arms, malformed and sickening to see.  
Where once the stained glass in the leaded windowpanes let in light in a rainbow of beautiful colors, now they were dark, murky, and showed a distorted view of a sky covered in purple-black clouds and lashed by rain.

Mortified by the sight of himself, and the terrible transformation of his palace, he threw back his head, and howled. The sound that issued forth was not unlike a lion's moan, but yet unlike in that it held a hard metallic edge to it, as of swords clashing on iron shields, steel spears on silvered armor.

Again, changes spread as though his anguished cry had substance. As each maid, each chamberlain, footman, lady-in-waiting, cook, seamstress, butler, steward, and stablehand heard it, they CHANGED.

Hands and arms shrunk, relocated themselves, multiplied or vanished. Legs and feet twisted and melted like soft wax. Heads, faces, necks, and torsos transformed.  
Each person, once human, now sported the accoutrements and appearance of that duty which had once been their primary purpose for working in the castle.  
Maids now appeared as feather-dusters, brooms, mops, buckets, and even large drop-clothes or polishing pads.

Butlers found themselves transfigured into trays, and the many pieces of a well-appointed tea service.  
Footmen became stools, door-knockers, and trolleys, which would carry the rest.  
Scullery maids, cooks, chefs, and drudges alike found themselves replacing the pots, pans, strainers, steamers, colanders, forks, knives, spoons, spatulas, tongs, and kettles which once they had used.

All were made new, and in strange and mundane forms. All cried out, or tried to, with mouths that no longer existed, and writhed with limbs that no longer existed.  
Bodies twisted, now made of substances never made to flex. Misery and fear reigned across the castle, as all it's inhabitants now found themselves transfigured, and what's more, Trapped within it's confines.

Guin was tired. For the first time in his admittedly short memory, he was tired.

His body ached from it's old injuries, and his harness rubbed and dragged at him like it was made of iron.  
He blinked eyes suddenly hot and heavy. Sighting a grove on the other side of the valley from where he stood, Guin altered his heading two points west of true north, as near as he could determine from his sighting of the Eye of Jarn the previous night.  
Thoughts of the nightmares of the night before last creeped across his mind again. And with little to occupy himself when walking all day long, Guin found himself welcoming the recollection as a distraction from his usual line of questions.

That prince. He'd been terrified, but Guin could discern no immediate reason why he should be feeling anything from the prince. There was a slight grittiness about what he'd seen... the way details still leaped out at him.  
There was the young woman with a mop, he remembered her cleaning the water and mud tracked in from a side-door.  
He recalled precisely how she'd stood there for a whole minute in the same place, mopping over and over while she watched the prince and his mysterious visitor.  
There were other details that came with absolute clarity, much like his battle with the ring-worm on the River of Death at the edge of Nosperos.  
Guin's experiences led him to believe that what he'd seen that night in his sleep had really happened.  
Who the prince was, and what had happened after that brief flash of vision, occupied Guin's mind sufficiently that he only realized he was nearing the grove, and had crossed the valley when the ground began to slope upwards once more, approaching a hillock that marked the furthest point of the trees.

As the leopard-headed man approached the first trees, he scanned their branches and the shadows among the trees, sniffing to try and catch any scent of other living things (or unliving) that warned of danger.  
There was the smell of flowing water in the air, and a smell of rotting leaves, and a slight stink of a skunk.  
But nothing alarming. No scent of rotting flesh, or cold sensations that warned of ghouls or malicious spirits.

Guin gratefully rested against the trunk of the first tree as he shed his cloak, rolling it up tightly and hanging it from his harness.  
He loosened it slightly, and rolled his shoulders and head to loosen the tendons, before bending forward to stretch the small of his back.  
There was a point on his shoulder that felt slightly numb; he rubbed it until it tingled, showing that the blood was flowing freely again.  
Now arching his back, Guin inhaled deeply through his nostrils as his arms rose at his sides. He stretched and breathed, and then let it out on a long slow exhale. Reaching for the waterbottle at his belt, he drained it.  
Then he turned and let his nose guide him over the crest of the hill and down to the water in the valley.  
He heard the water rushing. Methodically watching his footing and marking his trail, he walked on. With clawed fingertips he etched small circles and arrows in the bark to mark his path.  
After several more minutes of walking, he caught the first sparkle of water, rushing fast over stones in the sun. The shimmering brightness made him shade his vision with a hand, the other grasping his sword.  
Cautiously he advanced until he stood at the bank of a river. It wasn't very wide, or deep, but it flowed fast, carrying away anything that might obscure the stones at the bottom of it.  
Guin knelt, and use d a nearby twig to test the water's speed and force. The twig bent with the water's flow, and snapped, leaving a two-inch stub in his fingers.

Next, Guin opened his mouth and arranged his features into a snarl. His nostrils flared, and he scented as deeply as he could, for any hint of acid or lead in the light mist that rose from the river's surface.  
Finding nothing obviously amiss, he lowered a finger into the water, and was only slightly surprised to find that it was incredibly cold, as well as forceful.  
Most likely melt from an icecap in the mountains that he began to glimpse on the horizon on especially clear sunny days.

Unstoppering the flask from his belt, Guin knelt well back from the edge and holding one hand firmly around its neck and the other bracing the bottom of the flask, he lowered it until just the lip of the flask touched the water. In an instant the flask was gurgling from the force of the water rushing into it.  
He pulled it from the water and swished it around, rinsing the old, stale water from it. He dumped it, and then lowered it again. In a matter of seconds his fingers were chilled through and the flask was too full to even gurgle.  
He pulled it up and stoppered it.  
Guin held his fingers to his nose, and sniffed again, before tentatively licking his fingers dry. The water was cold, bracing, and fresh to his palate. There was no hint of pollution, silt, or poison in it. He lowered his head to the water and drank two quick mouthfuls before the urge to sneeze overcame him.  
Rearing back, he sneezed, which served two purposes.  
One, it cleared the water which had bubbled right up his nose. Two, it filled his lungs with fresh air, as the cold of the water had stolen his breath away.

Standing, the warrior began to look up and down the banks of the river. From a distance, the greenery that enclosed both sides of this river had stretched across his path north going from southwest to north-northeast. So he'd eventually have to figure a way across.  
Wiping water away from his muzzle, his fingers did their instinctive dance around his nose, across his whiskers, and up over his jaw, eyes, and head.  
Sighting with one hand to shield his eyes from the sun's glare on the water, he sighted north, and south. Seeing nothing obvious that he could cross on, he shrugged, and shaded by the trees that overhung the banks, he turned his steps to parallel the course of the river.

*Splash*  
The cold water felt good on his hot sweaty face. The small-fry demons who had been terrorizing a pair of farmers and their families was now dispatched to the underworld, and Inuyasha felt a bit better for it.  
Washing the back of his neck briefly, he then rinsed his sword's blade in the stream, and wiped it dry on his sleeve.  
Sheathing his sword, he looked back to the pair of small homesteads, and saw the farmer's waving. They seemed to want to speak to him, so he turned his steps back across their fields.  
When he reached within earshot, he could hear them yelling.

"Hey! Thank you! Won't you stay for dinner?!"

Well... Inuyasha's stomach gurgled, reminding him of the last time he'd fed it. A free meal wouldn't be bad, and they were just trying to be grateful...

Inuyasha found himself stepping a bit more lightly, and quickly.

The small farmhouses were side-by-side, but both were long and low, narrow across their fronts, but heading back towards the treeline for a fair ways.  
Inuyasha had observed during the brief struggle with the pig-demons that the narrow space between the houses was actually several dozen paces, and was a burgeoning kitchen garden.

Now, as he looked again, he could pick out several items growing that made him pick up his step as he approached the step to the front door where the farmers were both beaming at him.  
Sesame, soy, peppers, and a large variety of spices, along with burdock, and a small selection of herbs that the old woman, Kaede had taught him were especially useful in everyday life on the road.

He stepped up onto the porch, and the farmers grabbed him, hugging him and saying their wives would never let them hear the end of it, if he didn't stay and let them feed him.

Being the dog-half-demon he is, Inuyasha accepted, and even cracked a smile as he smelt meat already sizzling in the pot...

Stepping through the door, Inuyasha's sensitive nose is as sailed by a delicious beef-smell, akin to the beef jerky Kagome had once broght with her from the future.  
Enchanted, he walked forward and to the seat at the table that one of the women now ushered him to. Her smile was warm and heartfelt, and her hands were gentle and courteous as she seated him and served him some side-dishes and home-brewed sake.  
As the hungry dog-demon began to eat, the others asked questions about himself, his sword, and how he'd been able to beat all those demons, he chewed thoughtfully.  
Both the flavor and texture of the meat caught his attention, deliciously tender and juicy, and the sauce they'd given him to dip his slices of meat into was salty, spicy, and savory, and not at all sweet. Just the way he liked it.

Likewise, Inuyasha's thoughts were caught up in all that had happened in the last 3 years. Kagome, her confessions of love for him... their eventual marriage... that special first night together, and the shock just a scant few months later that she was pregnant... the first year and a half of absolute joy as he saw his son born, and the vagaries of learning to raise a child together...

He was jarred back to the present, as a small hand tugged his sleeve. One of the farmer's young boys, had latched onto his sleeve, and was staring wonderingly up at him... Inuyasha stared back, transfixed by the dark eyes, and black hair that was tinged with red.  
He coughed, and sat up, apologizing for letting his mind wool-gather.  
The farmer's wives both laughed, and told him to eat up, he was probably just hungry and tired from his battle. Inuyasha demurred, saying that it wasn't that big a deal, and that it was his pleasure to keep the countryside safe.  
But his eyes were drawn back to the small fingers that kept tugging on him. He couldn't help but let his mouth quirk up in a tiny smile.  
The little boy spotted his smile instantly and tugged harder. Inuyasha chuckled low in his throat, and scooped the boy up in his arms and laughed.  
The boy's mother, momentarily embarassed by her son's forward nature, laughed with relief seeing Inuyasha laugh and respond so well to the boy's inquisitive nature.  
The boy stood in Inuyasha's lap, and reached up. Inuyasha let out a little *erf* of surprise as the boy caught one of his ears in his tiny fist and pulled hard.  
But well-accustomed to this by his own son, Inuyasha just laughed and gently felt up to the boy's fingers and gingerly disentangled them before placing the boy's fingers around a piece of fruit instead.  
Those fingers immediately stuck the fruit in his mouth, and he scampered back to his mother. Inuyasha returned to his meal, and thoroughly enjoyed the first hot meal he'd had in weeks. The sun went down, and as the stars slowly came out, the women and their children disappeared into their private area, and the men and Inuyasha stayed at the table, nursing jugs of sake.  
And the dog-demon once more reflected that life wasn't so bad, but it would still be a LOT better with Kagome and their son.

Shippo was dead.

Or at least, that's what he figured he must be. He remembered the light dying, water filling his chest, and not even a chance to try one of his many tricks.

He was warm, and therefor, he could feel. Ghosts weren't supposed to be able to feel, right? Right, so he must not be dead.

With that, the little Fox-Demon began to notice other things. It was as though his body had been very deeply asleep.  
As he lay there, he slowly regained an awareness of his body.  
First his heart, thumping softly in his chest, just as it was supposed to.  
Then a little surge of feeling allowed him to twitch his fingers.  
After that, he felt his eyes, sore, aching in their sockets. That prompted him to try and open his eyes. At first met with resistance, he waited, twitching, until he regained enough feeling to raise a hand and rub at his eyes.

After several minutes picking away the crustiness around the corners of his eyes, Shippo tentatively sat up. When he opened his eyes, he blinked rapidly, trying to adjust to the bright sun that seeped down through the branches of the trees above him. He heard water running, and though he knew he was surrounded by trees, nothing looked right.

Disoriented, he stood, fell, and stood again on shaky paws. Then he staggered over in the direction of the water. When he carromed off a tree trunk, he stopped, and looked over at some small branches budding out near the ground.  
That stopped him cold.

There was no similarity between those leaves and the ones growing anywhere in Japan, ancient or modern.  
Shippo's brain spun. He sat heavily, and looked once more at the leaves of that branch. He'd cursed the long itchy hours spent with dusty scrolls and manuscripts.

His training for the Demon-Fox test had included so much herbal and alchemic lore that he'd nearly read himself blind trying to get through it all in the alloted time.

And the plants immediately visible resembled NONE of that...  
Frantic, he stood, and bolted past the trees, and towards the water. He dropped to his knees and stared into the water.  
Even the stones at the bottom didn't look like anything he'd ever seen.

Given that he'd known about the well and Kagome's appearance in Feudal-era Japan, and what he knew of her times...  
Thoughts clicked and clacked together inside his head, and Shippo felt a cold certainty seep through him. It started at his toes, he sat back rather than fall into the water again. As it seeped up his legs, he felt certain he was going to never walk again. As it reached his waist, he thought he smelt something acrid taint the moist air above the flowing water... Then he looked down, and saw to his shame that he'd wet himself.

The little Fox's vision blurred, and his head and neck felt suddenly hot.  
While the cold was gone, the heat that accompanied it made him dizzy all over.  
He felt himself slump over on his side, and he couldn't find the will to move. Then he came to another realization; he was crying, and his chest hurt.  
Shippo's first impulse was to think it was a heart-attack. He'd learned about what happened when the heart seized, and failed to beat normally. Maybe he was dying of shock? Well, at least he'd die quickly without having to suffer alone and lost wherever this was. But as the moments stretched out into minutes, the pain lessened. As the minutes stretched out into hours, Shippo felt the pain lessen still further.  
Reluctantly, he concluded that he wasn't going to conveniently die.  
So he lay there feeling tired, and very much confused, and slipped into sleep to the swift gurgling rush of the river's waters over the stony bed.

*****  
That's it for part one! Please leave comments, feedback, and I hope you enjoyed how I set the scene.  
Also, if you feel like supporting my writing, PM me for more details.


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